


The Appearance of Jeff Matthewson

by PaavoLeituri



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-29 00:24:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaavoLeituri/pseuds/PaavoLeituri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Town councilman Jeff Matthewson appears at the market, buying fruit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Appearance of Jeff Matthewson

This morning, town councilman Jeff Matthewson was seen shopping for fruit at the municipal market. Good for him; we should all take such an active hand in the smooth running of our households, and what’s more, set a good example to our fellow citizens by living healthy lives supported by our very own arable soil.  
One surprised citizen, though, remarked that in spite of the evidence unfolding in front of their very eyes Jeff Matthewson was, in fact, currently chairing a council meeting on traffic safety measures in town. This citizen, who shall not be named, was adamant that they had left the meeting early, for personal reasons, and could thus be quite certain that the meeting was still in progress, chaired, then and now, by Jeff Matthewson.  
When asked by an intrepid reporter what he was doing in the market square at this hour, Jeff Matthewson commented that his wife was making her delicious fruit salad, and had asked him to purchase a number of apples, raspberries, oranges, mangoes, pineapples, grapes, kiwis, blueberries, cherries, plums, tomatoes, apricots, blackberries, water melons, cantaloupes, strawberries, peaches, and cream. He then smiled and waved to his constituents, who were however growing slightly uneasy in light of the rumors making the rounds, and only half-smiled back.  
Who is this person standing in the market square, holding in his hands several hefty bags bulging with fruity freshness? And what is his game, anyway? Has Jeff Matthewson discovered the secret to being in more than one place at the same time? If so, where else could he be being? And is it morally justifiable to flaunt his newfound skill in public, when so many people don’t even like the one sorry little place they’re in?  
(…)  
An update on the situation in the market square: Jeff Matthewson – that is, the Jeff Matthewson who had been chairing a countil meeting – has arrived to meet his doppelgänger and, hopefully, sort out this confusing tangle of possible meanings.  
The crowd is parting to let him through. An expectant hush has softly settled on the scene, like a blanket on a baby. Jeff Matthewson has dropped his grocery bags. Jeff Matthewson is adjusting his tie. A lone cantaloupe is rolling across the empty space between them, bumping sheepishly against the toe of a bystander before coming to a rest.  
Jeff Matthewson – dressed in identical navy-blue suits, with their tiepins just so, their dark brown hair gleaming in the hot morning sun – are slowly moving toward each other, one step at a time. Their eyes are pinched, their arms hang loosely by their sides.  
More on this situation as it develops.  
(…)  
We are back, dear listeners, with news from the market square, where last we saw Jeff Matthewson facing Jeff Matthewson, possibly in a fight to the death. Well, I can tell those of you who were hoping for bloodshed – if ever there was a victimless crime, eh? – that nothing of the sort transpired, and to those of you who were apprehensive of bloodshed, I can say the exact same thing.  
What happened instead in the wake of those almost unbearably uncomfortable seconds was that Jeff Matthewson broke eye contact, ran his hand through his hair, and shuffled his feet uncertainly on the ground while trying and failing to say something to his opposite number. Apparently – who would have thought? – the outcome of meeting your duplicate is complete paralysis of thought and action. I hear that a YouTube video of the pair’s awkward stand-off, set to the tune of Lionel Richie’s “Say You, Say Me,” is already going viral – while the stand-off itself continues.  
Don’t go away, dear listeners – we will keep you up to date.  
(…)  
Preliminary interviews with witnesses have shed no light on the question which of the Jeff Matthewsons – the one appearing in the market square bright and early, running errands, or the one who arrived at the town hall on time to chair his council meeting – is the original, and which the copy; or whether both are not, in fact, identical manifestations of Jeff-Matthewson-ness singularly converging in one chronological sphere, thereby invalidating many of our scientists’ most firmly held views regarding space-time.  
Moreover, the uncertainty appears to be spreading, as Jeff Matthewson’s fellow council members, upon being interviewed by our intrepid reporters, profess a curious failure of their short-term memory with regard to the subject or subjects that had been up for discussion just half an hour ago – all remember having been there, and having heard him talk, but none seem to recall a single word. They might as well not have been there at all, they say. And is that not the only thing that needs to be said regarding the state of municipal politics in our town, dear listeners?  
(…)  
Dear listeners: the situation in the market square has been resolved, albeit temporarily: citing concerns for public safety in view of the ever-increasing throng of spectators, the police have stepped in and placed Jeff Matthewson under detention – temporarily, of course, and entirely for their own good.  
And yet, the market square continues to be populated by hundreds of confused and concerned citizens, who are wandering around with no apparent goal or purpose, picking up stones and random debris from the ground and gazing for minutes on end at the circumstantial residue of the unique event that has transpired there, as though the physical essence of space held, wrapped tightly against its bosom, the mystery of time. In the meantime, the philosophical and scientific problem of bilocation has been resolved with the pragmaticism for which our town is known, as Jeff Matthewson – one, and the same – are currently being held in the same cell of the sheriff’s office, pending interrogation.  
(…)  
A preliminary statement has been released by the police; it does not touch upon specifics regarding the case of Jeff Matthewson, confining itself to the general message that “the case is under investigation,” and concentrating instead on admonishing our town’s population – you and me, dear listeners – to avoid the same mistake or mistakes, whatever they may have been, that have led our esteemed councilman to this hopelessly tangled state of events. An excerpt:  
“We are living in strange times, and witnessing strange events. Life is becoming faster, and more convoluted, by the minute. We have come to regard this, not as a problem but as the ‘new normal’ – wishing, perhaps, to bend ourselves, our very natures, to accommodate life’s ever-increasing pace and bulk.  
But fragmentation is not the answer. It leads to even more clutter, and leaves us with even less time in which to tend to it. The thinner we spread ourselves – the more of us there is – the smaller we become.  
In light of recent developments, this sheriff’s department has seen no other alternative than to make the laws of the universe – hitherto thought unassailable – the laws of this town, and to enforce them with all the intransigence that they demand.  
Dear citizens: we are one. Those who are not, will be dealt with.”  
(…)  
In spite of the best efforts of our intrepid reporters, no further statement has been released by the police. Instead, Jeff Matthewson has been returned to our midst with no charges and no explanation – entirely alone. His duplicate? Speculation is all that our cognition affords us at present. Whether Jeff Matthewson, having appeared out of thin air, has thus disappeared again into the very same thin air – now thickened, presumably, by one iteration of Jeff Matthewson – or whether he remains somewhere in the bowels of the sheriff’s department, perhaps with an iron mask clamped over his face, will, I am sure, be the subject of lively speculation for years to come, before eventually subsiding into a tickling at the back of our necks as we try to sleep at night.  
For now, things have returned to normal. Although it must be noted that ever since his release, an air of sadness has come to envelop Jeff Matthewson. He hangs back at council meetings, staring into the distance, lost in thought. His wife, it is said, has taken a lover.  
It would be easy for us to judge him – he is, after all, a public servant, and thus the last person who should be able to get away with flagrant displays of public laziness. But we would do well to remember the one day on which he achieved, and then lost, what so many of us long for and will never know. Before you vote him out of office, dear listeners, put yourself in his shoes – all four of them – and try to understand.


End file.
